At the present time there continues to be an appreciable commercial demand for tires having sidewalls or portions thereof of different color than the remainder of the tire. Normally tires have a black tread and sidewall but the provision of raised, generally white, letters or colored areas in the tire sidewalls has been in great demand by the public and is being provided by virtually all tire manufacturers. These decorative sidewalls are usually built integrally with the tires by well known procedures. However, such decorative sidewall tires are costly to build and involve relatively expensive manufacturing procedures. In addition, the integrally-built sidewalls generally display the name, brand or serial number of the manufacturer rather than a personalized name or phrase desired by the owner of the tire.
While efforts have previously been made to provide removable or personalized types of sidewall trim members that can be affixed in or to a pneumatic tire sidewall, the method of securing such members to the sidewall generally requires the use of specially manufactured or modified tires, rather than the use of standard pneumatic tires. Such methods are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,128,815 and 3,258,050 to Nonnamaker, 4,317,479 to McDonald and 4,318,436 to Shurman.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,256,159 issued to Williams, there is disclosed a method and apparatus for applying identifying markings, such as letters, on vehicle tires. Under the Williams procedure, the tire surface is first prepared to receive the marking, a first layer of rubber latex is then vulcanized to the surface of the tire, a second layer of elastomeric material is then secured to the first layer, and, finally, a foil leaf material is hot stamped into the second layer.
Although its method and apparatus does not require the use of specially manufactured tires, Williams is more suitable for high volume commercial applications due to the complexity and expense of the procedure and due to the permanence of the markings applied to the tires.